Don Jon (2013)

Don Jon Synopsis

Jon Martello (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a strong, handsome, good old fashioned guy. His buddies call him Don Jon due to his ability to "pull" a different woman every weekend, but even the finest fling doesn't compare to the bliss he finds alone in front of the computer watching pornography. Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson) is a bright, beautiful, good old fashioned girl. Raised on romantic Hollywood movies, she's determined to find her Prince Charming and ride off into the sunset. Wrestling with good old fashioned expectations of the opposite sex, Jon and Barbara struggle against a media culture full of false fantasies to try and find true intimacy in this unexpected comedy written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

If you’ve been wondering what it takes to take on numerous roles within the making of a movie, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has put together an exclusive behind-the-scenes clip giving us a glimpse at how Gordon-Levitt was able to balance his roles as an actor, director and writer on the Don Jon set.

Don Jon is mostly a fun and entertaining film about a guy who loses himself during sex, but is trying to lose himself in a relationship. Written, directed by, and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the film takes a look at the life of a young man named Don Jon, who tells audiences at the very beginning of the film that only a few things are important to him.

This weekend saw a strong finish to September as Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 snagged a strong first place, banking $35 million. That's a step up from the first mutated food adventure which had an opening weekend of $30 million in 2009.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 may not match the jangly comic insanity of the original film released in 2009, but it had an ace in the hole no matter what: families with nothing else to see at the movies. According to the early numbers at The Hollywood Reporter Cloudy 2 was an easy leader at the box office on Friday, making $9.3 million and setting a course for a $35 million opening.

Don Jon is really only about a few things. His body. His pad. His ride. His family. His church. Hi boys. His girls. And, of course, his porn. It's that last part that really starts causing him trouble in Don Jon, the directorial debut of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who also transforms himself as the titular charter, a classic Jersey bro who has to learn the hard way that immersing yourself in porn is no actual way to live your life

This week we're trying to figure out if Rush is a film by Ron Howard or maybe by Anthony Dod Mantle, talking about auteurs who might not be the directors of their given films. We also dig into the new documentary After Tiller and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's directorial debut Don Jon, figure out how to cure the constant awards season ill of In Memoriam segments, and pick our favorite scenes of food porn in the movies

With this beautiful fall weather descending upon us I want nothing more than to sit in my darkened man cave and consider the movie world for an afternoon. Who needs the crisp fall air when you’ve got guido libidos, rom-coms and meatballs in the sky?

Who needs to get into the story when you got ScarJo and JG-L making out? Top it off with some brief sound bites of critical praise, and you’ve delivered the message of “must see” to an audience groomed for instant gratification.

We're co-hosting a special advance screening of Don Jon in New York City next Monday, August 26th at 7:30 p.m., and we want YOU to attend. To enter, just send an e-mail to screening@cinemablend.com with your full name in the subject line; we'll respond with the information about the time and location of the screening, and we'll have your name on the list at the door, along with a plus-one. If you RSVP, please make sure you can actually show up!

In the movie Gordon-Levitt stars as Jon "Don Jon" Martello, Jr., an ordinary guy in his mid-30s living in New Jersey who cares about nothing in the world other than his family, his friends, his car, his apartment, getting laid, and watching porn. He lives a happy if unsatisfying life, but everything starts to change when he meets Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson), the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.

In Don Jon, JGL plays a club rat who trolls Jersey’s hottest bars in search of an ideal mate. He finally finds one in ScarJo, but is unwilling to ease up on his online compulsions just because he eventually ends up in a semi-serious relationship.

Perhaps within the plot of the film, Don Jon (Gordon-Levitt) introducing Barbara (Scarlett Johansson) to his parents Jon Sr. (Danza) and Angela (Glenne Headly) is a really big deal and plays out in an interesting way. But here in clip form, it’s almost sitcomish,

In his writing/directorial debut, Gordon-Levitt stars as a young Italian, church-going man living in New Jersey who has no problem picking up any woman he likes, but finds more satisfaction from online pornography.

The October release date leads me to believe Relativity might be prepping for an awards run, if not on the Oscar circuit (where the porn angle could make for a difficult sell) then at least on the film-fest track and, possibly, the Independent Spirit Awards campaign. Johansson, Danza, Moore and Gordon-Levitt all deliver awards-worthy performance, and the director easily could attract heat if the movie catches on.

The story of Don Jon will be its use of pornography to tell of Jon’s predicament, and there are multiple discussions we can have regarding imagery in the media perverting the communal mind when it comes to sex, or Jon’s mistaken belief that simply attending weekly confession will return him to the straight-and-narrow path toward righteousness and healing.